Crossroads in Career/Go down Financial Controller Route

JimmyCorkhill

Hey Folks,

Looking for some career advice as feel I am at a crossroads in my career & not sure which direction to go.

Mid 30's, ACCA qualified 4 years now. Did accounting in college, then did a few different non accounting jobs in 20's, travelled etc before going back in late 20's to start the ACCA exams and went into industry as a trainee accountant in a large US multinational.

Worked in a typical General Ledger accounting role in a Shared Services Center doing the US GAAP side of things for various entities as a controller. Your standard monthly postings, P&L, B/S, dealing with auditors etc. As it was a SSC, the likes of the fixed assets were managed in an offshore location & VAT returns managed by the VAT team for example, so I did not not do the A to Z of it all.
Used SAP & the end of each FY SAP would spit out the financial statements as per US GAAP. Local GAAP accounts were prepared by accountants in the local entity home country.

Moved within the same multinational company to a management accounting/FP&A role - where I am currently. Doing lots of budgeting, forecasting, planning, analysis, pricing, management reporting, KPI's, metrics etc. I enjoy this side of the house.

But I have been having thoughts about possibly going down the route of a financial controller. Had a look some job specs recently and the same role title can have different requirements in different organisations.

Taking an imaginary job as an example for getting a role as an FC in a small Irish company, lets say annual revenues of €4m and 25 staff, delivering some sort of service. Using an accounting system like Xero (never used it before but have seen it mentioned a few times). While I would be more than comfortable with any budgeting, forecasting, planning, analysis, pricing, reporting, AP/AR within the role, it is the tasks like payroll accounting and any tax/VAT returns and preparation of the year end financial statements that I think I would struggle to do initially as I would not have much experience of this part.

While working in the GL Accounting role that was under US GAAP & what you entered in SAP spits out the financial statements at the year end.

I have a good understanding of the accounting standards under US GAAP but I could not even tell you what accounting standards do the accounts of a small Irish company need to be prepared under, or any of the other requirements for a small Irish company with annual turnovers of €4m.

I spoke briefly with an acquaintance who is an accountant in practice & he told me, I would be fine for 80%+ of it straight away with what I know already and the other stuff I would pick up or figure it out or could ask him or other practice accountants I know in relation to any queries I had re: preparation of the year end financial statements.

So I guess I am wondering am I mad to consider going down the FC route? Will it be a struggle to do the payroll accounting and/or prepare the YE Financial Statements?
Or am I underselling myself and I will be able to figure the bits I have no experience with out?

In hindsight I wish I maybe went into practice to get that solid accounts preparation experience.

Any advice/thoughts/experiences are greatly appreciated.

Thanks

whatawaster

JimmyCorkhill wrote: »

Hey Folks,

Looking for some career advice as feel I am at a crossroads in my career & not sure which direction to go.

Mid 30's, ACCA qualified 4 years now. Did accounting in college, then did a few different non accounting jobs in 20's, travelled etc before going back in late 20's to start the ACCA exams and went into industry as a trainee accountant in a large US multinational.

Worked in a typical General Ledger accounting role in a Shared Services Center doing the US GAAP side of things for various entities as a controller. Your standard monthly postings, P&L, B/S, dealing with auditors etc. As it was a SSC, the likes of the fixed assets were managed in an offshore location & VAT returns managed by the VAT team for example, so I did not not do the A to Z of it all.
Used SAP & the end of each FY SAP would spit out the financial statements as per US GAAP. Local GAAP accounts were prepared by accountants in the local entity home country.

Moved within the same multinational company to a management accounting/FP&A role - where I am currently. Doing lots of budgeting, forecasting, planning, analysis, pricing, management reporting, KPI's, metrics etc. I enjoy this side of the house.

But I have been having thoughts about possibly going down the route of a financial controller. Had a look some job specs recently and the same role title can have different requirements in different organisations.

Taking an imaginary job as an example for getting a role as an FC in a small Irish company, lets say annual revenues of €4m and 25 staff, delivering some sort of service. Using an accounting system like Xero (never used it before but have seen it mentioned a few times). While I would be more than comfortable with any budgeting, forecasting, planning, analysis, pricing, reporting, AP/AR within the role, it is the tasks like payroll accounting and any tax/VAT returns and preparation of the year end financial statements that I think I would struggle to do initially as I would not have much experience of this part.

While working in the GL Accounting role that was under US GAAP & what you entered in SAP spits out the financial statements at the year end.

I have a good understanding of the accounting standards under US GAAP but I could not even tell you what accounting standards do the accounts of a small Irish company need to be prepared under, or any of the other requirements for a small Irish company with annual turnovers of €4m.

I spoke briefly with an acquaintance who is an accountant in practice & he told me, I would be fine for 80%+ of it straight away with what I know already and the other stuff I would pick up or figure it out or could ask him or other practice accountants I know in relation to any queries I had re: preparation of the year end financial statements.

So I guess I am wondering am I mad to consider going down the FC route? Will it be a struggle to do the payroll accounting and/or prepare the YE Financial Statements?
Or am I underselling myself and I will be able to figure the bits I have no experience with out?

In hindsight I wish I maybe went into practice to get that solid accounts preparation experience.

Any advice/thoughts/experiences are greatly appreciated.

Thanks

Hi,

I work as a Finance Manager for a small Manufacturing group (30 employees, 3 million turnover, manufacturing sites in Ireland and Poland). I am the only person in the finance department where I work (so no separate Accounts Payable, Accounts Receivable or Payroll - I handle everything). We also have just moved to Xero btw.

My 2 cent, for what it's worth.

If I was hiring my replacement now, I wouldn't consider you for my role, given your lack of knowledge around VAT, Payroll, Accounts Prep. But that's just the nature of our company - you would be thrown in the deep end. In another company there may be supports you can lean on.

A lot of those skills you lack - VAT, PAYE etc - are not difficult to learn. You could do courses, read books. You would pick them up quickly.

The skills you do have - budgeting, analysis, reporting etc - are in my experience much more rare, and more valuable skills to have.

My advice - fill in the gaps in your knowledge - you already know what they are, and you would be an idea candidate for a FC role.

In the interim, you would probably be better suited to something like an assistant FC position, or an FC role with support functions (AP/AR)

JimmyCorkhill

whatawaster wrote: »

Hi,

I work as a Finance Manager for a small Manufacturing group (30 employees, 3 million turnover, manufacturing sites in Ireland and Poland). I am the only person in the finance department where I work (so no separate Accounts Payable, Accounts Receivable or Payroll - I handle everything). We also have just moved to Xero btw.

My 2 cent, for what it's worth.

If I was hiring my replacement now, I wouldn't consider you for my role, given your lack of knowledge around VAT, Payroll, Accounts Prep. But that's just the nature of our company - you would be thrown in the deep end. In another company there may be supports you can lean on.

A lot of those skills you lack - VAT, PAYE etc - are not difficult to learn. You could do courses, read books. You would pick them up quickly.

The skills you do have - budgeting, analysis, reporting etc - are in my experience much more rare, and more valuable skills to have.

My advice - fill in the gaps in your knowledge - you already know what they are, and you would be an idea candidate for a FC role.

In the interim, you would probably be better suited to something like an assistant FC position, or an FC role with support functions (AP/AR)

Hi

Many thanks for your reply.

I fully understand what you are saying and where you are coming from.

I have looked from time to time on a jobs site and have not really seen an assistant FC position where I could get that experience.

I do have experience from AP & AR so that side of the house I would be comfortable in.

I am a quick learner and eager to learn & upskill, so I would be confident I would pick up on the VAT/Payroll/Accounts Prep reasonably quickly but like anything until you have done it before you would not be fully confident or accurate even.

Maybe I just need to keep looking for an assistant FC Role.

Even the accounts preparation experience, while working in my current role I won't get that, the only other places I could think of for getting that would be in a local sports club as a Treasurer or working with the treasurer.

It does seem like there are a good amount of finance manager/controller roles out there.

ari101

JimmyCorkhill wrote: »

It does seem like there are a good amount of finance manager/controller roles out there.

Some Finance Manager roles are FC equivalent but some are more of assistant FC in slightly bigger organisations - might be worth looking at those descriptions closer.

For payroll in a smaller org, some basic HR knowledge is probably needed, but most places use a computerised package or outsource so once you know how to calculate and understand a bit about holiday entitlements, BIK, etc. You should be ok. Might be an area to take a short course.

A lot of computer systems churn out the VAT3 and some also the RTD, but VIES and Intrastat for companies with import/export can take a bit more getting your head around if you've not done it before.

I've worked in Finance Manager / Assistant FC roles that oversaw this kind of stuff without the title, and where the FP&A work also got a look in and was a big bonus, some people use titles in ways you wont expect.

JimmyCorkhill

ari101 wrote: »

Some Finance Manager roles are FC equivalent but some are more of assistant FC in slightly bigger organisations - might be worth looking at those descriptions closer.

For payroll in a smaller org, some basic HR knowledge is probably needed, but most places use a computerised package or outsource so once you know how to calculate and understand a bit about holiday entitlements, BIK, etc. You should be ok. Might be an area to take a short course.

A lot of computer systems churn out the VAT3 and some also the RTD, but VIES and Intrastat for companies with import/export can take a bit more getting your head around if you've not done it before.

I've worked in Finance Manager / Assistant FC roles that oversaw this kind of stuff without the title, and where the FP&A work also got a look in and was a big bonus, some people use titles in ways you wont expect.

Thanks for your reply.

Good point on looking at the descriptions a bit closer. An assistant type FC role (even if it is called something different) is probably the ideal and have a more senior finance figure who can show me the ropes on a couple of the things that I do not have all the experience in.

Any course you would recommend from a payroll perspective?

On the VAT side, I would need to get up to speed on that too. I have someone who works in VAT and they would be someone I could lean on if I had any queries initially, so that is handy.

ari101

JimmyCorkhill wrote: »

Any course you would recommend from a payroll perspective?

I'm afraid I on the jobbed a lot of it as I have experience both in practice and industry, so just doing short webinars and my own research to keep up on current trends, so I don't have any specific recommendations.

trixi001

Sage are currently doing free accredited courses for both payroll and accounts - might be worth doing them?

https://sageu.csod.com/catalog/CustomPage.aspx?id=221000316#accounts